House of Spirits

By Isabel Allende

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In a word: powerful

In a sentence: The Trueba family rises and falls as Chile descends into dictatorship.

Synopsis: In a generational tale of the Trueba family, House of Spirits illustrates Chile’s ascent into democracy, then rapid collapse into dictatorship. Filled to the brim with magical realism, and a slew of classic South American literary tropes, this novel feels like Chile.

Reactions: House of Spirits is a triumph of South American literary tradition. In particular, when reading this novel, you can feel the influence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in its structure of a generational family saga. There is also the foreboding historical context of this text, which paints an evocative portrait of Chile’s descent into dictatorship. It delves not only historically, but also emotionally into the Chilean experience.

This may be one of my favorite works of feminist literature, which I so often find disappointingly heavy-handed. The Trueba clan, throughout the entire history of The House of Spirits, is run by its matriarchs. The women in this novel, Clara in particular, determine the energy of the house and inscribe the tales of the Truebas as a generational history. To contrast, Esteban, the actual patriarch, is depicted as increasingly ineffectual, and even physically shrinks in size.

Read if: you adore magical realism, or wish to gain an emotional understanding of the political context of 20th century Chile.